A Dark Street Explodes

This night is darker than most. Gray-brown clouds steam in to blot out the moon, holding the heat close to the ground, boiling the city.

It's late, and the Marines are doing curfew checks, rolling through black alleys in Humvees, sometimes with headlights, sometimes without.

Civilian cars are to be off the streets by 9. People by 10.

The Marines have seen action in most neighborhoods, but some are worse than others, like this one. They check out Jolan Park, a decrepit amusement park. They skim through the streets of the Pizza Slice, a rough triangle of city that includes the Martyrs' Cemetery. Iraqi police trucks, red and blue lights spinning, have been shadowing the Humvee convoy for a while -- not a comfort to the guys on the patrol, who believe the police work with the insurgents.

The Marines turn north on the street they call Henry. It's quiet. It's been quiet for a couple of days for Charlie Company, since the grenade attack that sent a couple of Marines to the hospital at Camp Fallujah with minor shrapnel wounds.

The street is empty. The Humvees kick up dust, blurring their dark silhouettes as they muscle through tight spots

Then, the street explodes.

A yellow-orange blast turns night into day for less than a second. The sound isn't Hollywood, a rumbling thunder explosion. It's more like a metal garbage can smashed with a baseball bat, times 10,000.

Marines call out to each other, asking if everybody is OK, passing along the conclusion that this was a roadside bomb.

At the same time, the convoy is accelerating, getting out of the area, avoiding whatever ambush might be planned. The four trucks race back toward their downtown base.

The fourth Humvee was hit, its rear end absorbing much of the bomb's shrapnel, flattening both rear tires and punching holes through aluminum parts of the body. It's limping now, rolling slow on its wrecked tires.

All make it through the gate and back to the base, where Marines pour out of the building to see what happened. Several flashlight beams play over the damaged vehicle and crew. The Marine who was in the gun turret -- Lance Cpl. Daniel Chamberlain from New Jersey, the only one directly exposed to the explosion -- was hit by shrapnel on the part of his back exposed by the armhole of his body armor. It's nothing serious, nor is his concussion.

This is the way of things here. Improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, have claimed more U.S. troops than anything else. It's the reason for the armor on the Humvees, which protected the Marines inside Chamberlain's truck. And as U.S. forces strive to adapt and counter the simple but deadly tactic, the insurgency adapts, too.

This bomb wasn't a large one. It's more difficult for insurgents to conceal a large bomb in a city, with its traffic and its asphalt to dig through. And the Marines start to get an IED sense. They travel the same streets so often, they can sometimes notice a mound of rubble out of place or a trash heap too high.

The Marines know they'll be hit, but the company commander, Maj. Vaughn Ward, says, ``You can't not go out.'' If the Marines stay inside to avoid trouble, ``you're letting the enemy dictate what you can and can't do.''